We find the Sonata V2 to be a very sweet deal and the best bang for the buck in the Grado cartridge lineup. For that matter it is the best cartridge we have heard at this price - period. The Sonata V2 has sweet detailed highs, beautiful mids and solid bass. This is one of our highly recommended products!

The newly redesigned Platinum V2 and Sonata V2 have had their coil design
reconfigured, and the effective moving mass of their generating system
has been reduced by 17%. All this is hand-assembled within a machined,
new processed, Australian Jarrah wood housing. The Platinum1 and Sonata2
models use a modified four piece OTL cantilever technology achieving a
10% tip mass reduction over the Prestige series and ultra-high purity
long crystal (UHPLC) oxygen free copper wire in the coils. The Platinum
model uses Grado's specially designed elliptical diamond mounted on a
brass bushing, and the Sonata model uses Grado's specially designed nude
elliptical diamond.